Balakovo nuclear power plant
Balakovo nuclear power plant is a nuclear power station in Russia with 4 operating units totalling 4,000 MW gross. The site has 6 units on record in total.
Units
| Unit | Status | Type | Model | Gross MW | Online |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 1 | PWR | VVER V-320 | 1,000 | 1986 | |
| Unit 2 | PWR | VVER V-320 | 1,000 | 1988 | |
| Unit 3 | PWR | VVER V-320 | 1,000 | 1989 | |
| Unit 4 | PWR | VVER V-320 | 1,000 | 1993 | |
| Unit 5 | Cancelled (inferred) | PWR | VVER V-1000 | 950 | - |
| Unit 6 | Cancelled (inferred) | PWR | VVER V-1000 | 950 | - |
Balakovo nuclear power plant in context
By gross operating capacity Balakovo nuclear power plant is the 3rd largest of 10 operating nuclear sites in Russia, holding 13% of the country's operating capacity, and ranks 22nd of 172 worldwide.
Its operating units started up between 1986 and 1993; the median unit is 37.5 years old, the same as the median in Russia.
The 4 units with both construction and grid dates on record took 5.1 to 9.0 years (median 6.2) from construction start to grid connection; the median across all reactors connected in the 1980s is 7.3 years.
No other nuclear site with an exact position in this dataset lies within 300 km.
Build time by unit
| Unit | Construction start | Grid connection | Years | Fleet median, same decade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 1 | 1980 | 1985 | 5.1 | 7.3 (1980s) |
| Unit 2 | 1981 | 1987 | 6.2 | 7.3 (1980s) |
| Unit 3 | 1982 | 1988 | 6.1 | 7.3 (1980s) |
| Unit 4 | 1984 | 1993 | 9.0 | 8.0 (1990s) |
How these are worked out: ranks use gross operating capacity; ages count from the start-up year on record, as on the age page; build times run from construction start to grid connection, as on the build-times page; ratings are the tracker's net and design net capacity, as on the uprates page. Distances are straight-line between exact positions, so a site with only an approximate position gets none. A unit missing a date or a rating is left out of the figure that needs it.
Earthquakes nearby
Loading the latest USGS check…
| Time (UTC) | Mag | Depth | Epicentre | Distance |
|---|
Magnitude 4.0 and above within 200 km of Balakovo nuclear power plant's listed coordinates, past 30 days. This is distance, not shaking: it says nothing about damage or any change in operation. Every plant.
| Location | Saratov, Russia |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 52.0928, 47.9539 |
| Elevation | about 50 mabove sea level |
| Setting | On the shore of a large lake, 0.9 km from the water |
| Region | Eastern Europe |
| Units by status | Operating: 4 Cancelled: 2 |
Elevation is read at the listed coordinates from a 30 m terrain model (SRTM 30 m). Two independent models differ by a median of 6 m across our plants and by up to about 40 m on steep or coastal ground, and a point on a shoreline can read as sea level. Distance to the water is measured to a generalised 1:10 million coastline, so a few kilometres or less is not resolved. This is context, not a design-basis or flood-risk figure.
| Owners | Rosatom |
|---|---|
| Operators | Rosenergoatom |
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Sources
- Global Nuclear Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, August 2026 release , CC BY 4.0 · retrieved 2026-09-06
- GEM.wiki entry (further reading) , CC BY-SA 4.0, linked, not quoted
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data